A quail flock lifts a hunter’s net by agreeing to rise at the same count. Coordination becomes liberation.
The field stuttered with seed and danger. A hunter knew where quail came to quarrel over grain; he cast his net and gathered their panic into a bundle he could carry. One evening a quail with an unshowy voice said, “We can break nothing alone, but together we can move what weighs us if we move at once.” The flock agreed to lift on the count of three the next time the net fell. It fell. They lifted—one two three—and the hunter stumbled as his certainty became a balloon tugging against his hand. The flock drifted to a thorn bush that combed the net from their feathers. Freedom rustled like laughter.
This annoyed the hunter more than hunger ever had. He patched the net and switched fields; the quail switched fields too, but kept the count. Each success made them kinder in argument and quicker in apology; the habit of lifting together leaked into other parts of their air-bound lives. But unity has predators as real as hawks. Two quail fought over a seed with the intensity small things sometimes invite. “I’ll be late on the count to teach him a lesson,” one muttered. The hunter’s net listened for such sentences and fell. On “three,” the lift sagged on one side and failed. The basket held.
That night the quail king slept on the branch nearest the fight and woke the disputants before dawn. “The thorn bush is still where it was,” he said, “but the path to it begins earlier than our feet.” They cried a little, then agreed to try again. The next fall of net met a lift that included the stubborn, the embarrassed, and the wiser. Together they rose. Above them, sky—the original commons—held room for many synchronized escapes.
